Don't You Think I Was Too Young?
by luvtheheaven
Summary: Rory's point of view on her relationship with Jess. My first ever songfic. It's based on Taylor Swift's song "Dear John". Very full of angst. Canon. Well. Pretty canon but it is fanfiction so I'm adding unseen non-canon stuff of course. Please review!


_**Author's Note**__ – I will be getting to the last chapter(s) of __**Just For You**__, my Jess/Luke fic asap. I'm so sorry to have been blowing that off for so long. I hate to keep you all waiting. But in the mean time you guys could read and review my little Dean/Rory fic I wrote recently – it's really a Lane/Rory scene where Rory thinks about both Jess & Dean and it's pro-Literati – it is me of course. XD I'd love some more opinions on that lol._

_I've been getting inspired to write fics for other fandoms, and vid, and I've been writing autobiographical tumblr blog posts... also I've been beta-ing for 3 wonderful Gilmore Girls authors. Please check all of their stories out – Hallon's **Freudian Slip** I haven't had to beta for a little while but it's a good Rory/Jess season 2-centric fic, **You've Got Mail **by Keiko Noriko is a future Lit fic that's supposed to take place like now (2011), I literally just finished beta-ing chapter 3 for her, both of those I didn't review the very beginnings of but I became their betas for the remainders of the fics... XD And then I also really enjoyed beta-ing two of Kapsule corp.'s one-shot fics, they're really well done and her first venture into the Gilmore Girls fandom. The first one, **The Brag Book** is a wonderful Christopher/Rory fic that really paints Chris in exactly the light I like to think of him in lol, and the second one, **What Love Means** is a Luke-centric Luke/Jess fic and it's really really wonderful... XD So yeah I highly recommend checking out all 4 of those fics I've been beta-ing. I've been really enjoying them. _

_I will try to write my next chapter of **Just For You** as soon as I can. First, I am writing this because I can't get the song and idea out of my head. I wanted to vid Rory & Jess to this song, I think it's really perfect for Rory's point of view on their relationship. But some of the lyrics would be a bit hard to match and the choruses are quite repetitive and vidding it would be way too time consuming given my busy schedule of homework/midterm exams/papers due in the next week or so... so I thought a short little songfic was in order. This is my first attempt at a songfic. I think most of Taylor Swift's songs fit Literati scarily well, a really high percentage of them lmao... happy, sad, etc... and well this one is no exception. Please listen to the song before reading the fic, and get the song in your head, set the mood/tone for yourself. The song is "Dear John" by Taylor Swift. I'm sure you can find it on YouTube or somewhere similar and just listen to the song for free. ;) I decided not to get this beta-ed. XD I know I'm not the best writer on here or anything but I hope you all like it anyway. If you think I should get all of my stories beta-ed I will. But a lot of people say I don't really need one so I think for now I'll just keep my multi-chapter longer fics having a beta but that's it._

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_Long were the nights when  
My days once revolved around you  
Counting my footsteps  
Praying the floor won't fall through, again  
My mother accused me of losing my mind  
But I swore I was fine_

It's been 3 months since Rory's seen Jess's face. Since she heard his voice. Since she even heard anyone talk about him. It's almost the end of summer. She'll be moving into her Yale dorm room soon, moving on with her life in a very real way. Going to college. What a step in growing up. She can't believe Jess really was only a staple of her high school years. She always knew somewhere in her mind that Dean would only be her high school boyfriend, that they wouldn't be likely to last... but Jess she was so sure would be bigger than that. Those days are gone now. She remembers sneaking a phone call to him that night after he'd bid on her basket. She remembers sneaking off to New York and cutting school just to see him. The way her mother had reacted to that, had seen her true feelings so clearly. "Maybe, honey, you're falling for Jess." Lorelai had been so worried that Jess was a bad seed, and would break Rory, hurt her. She acted like her worst fears had come true when Jess accidentally crashed her car and caused Rory's wrist fracture... but Rory knew Jess hadn't broken her then. Now, however... now Rory really did feel broken. Her mother was right. She wasn't prepared for being this heartbroken. Lonely. Empty. It'd been three whole months and she still was missing him.

_You paint me a blue sky  
And go back and turn it to rain  
And I lived in your chess game  
But you changed the rules every day  
Wonderin' which version of you I might get on the phone, tonight  
Well I stopped pickin' up and this song is to let you know why_

Rory is so mad at Jess. He has just called her cell phone for the fourth time today. She knows it's him. Her graduation was today and she was very distracted. Her speech had been a success, and everyone kept complimenting her on it. So much had been going on that she was actually able to enjoy the experience and say the bittersweet goodbyes to her friends and teachers, and not even think of Jess. But then some number with a 310 area code would call again. She'd never seen that area code before; it had to be Jess calling from California, she just knew it. She'd answer it. And then no one would respond on the other end. This last time when he calls, she decides to tell him how she feels. She thinks of how him leaving like this has ruined everything – what they had was so perfect and beautiful. She really had fallen so hard for him. She wishes he'd respond. She wishes she knew what he was thinking. But she can't see his face and so she can't read him this time. She tells him she thinks she may have loved him but she just has to let it go. She also says goodbye. And so she knows this will be the last time he calls. She essentially told him not to call anymore. She regrets it the moment she hangs up. She is heartbroken because he basically broke up with her without telling her. But then she did the breaking up with him just now. How stupid can she be. If she didn't want to break up with him... why didn't she say that, beg for him back instead of say a lame and stupid goodbye? Either way she sounded pathetic. Oh well. At least she got her point across. That he was wrong to have left like that. And that he hurt her. She knew that was clear in her call.

_Dear John, I see it all now that you're gone  
Don't you think I was too young  
To be messed with  
The girl in the dress  
Cried the whole way home, I should've known._

Right before Sookie's wedding ceremony, Rory jumps Jess and kisses him. She literally couldn't resist him. She runs away in her high heels and bridesmaid dress, running to Lorelai where the ceremony is about the begin. Lorelai hands her flowers and Rory makes the decision to run away to Washington D.C. as soon as humanly possible. She can't deal with Dean and Jess and deciding what she's going to do right now. She doesn't want to deal with it. As she watches Sookie and Jackson say their vows, she tries to be happy for them. But she keeps thinking of how much she hates Jess for making her fall for him. It was all his fault. He came back to Stars Hollow just for her. Who does that? She couldn't handle him trying to pry her away from Dean; he's obviously succeeded now and forced her to cheat. He messed with her mind.

_Well maybe it's me  
And my blind optimism to blame_

_Or maybe it's you and your sick need  
To give love and take it away_

Rory always did see the world through very naive eyes. She realizes now maybe she didn't understand Jess as well as she thought she did. Maybe he was crueler than she could have imagined possible. After all, how could he just leave her like this? After appearing to care about her so much and acting so sweet and romantic. He'd looked up how far Yale was from Stars Hollow – 22.8 miles. It haunts her to think about it and it makes her hate him more. He shouldn't have been so full of sweet love if he was just going to disappear like this. It wasn't fair.

_And you'll add my name to your long list of traitors who don't understand  
And I'll look back in regret how I ignored when they said  
'Run as fast as you can'_

When Rory yells "No!" to him in her dorm room, she knows what he's thinking. She knows how he's never been able to count on anyone, how much he hated the world. She knows both of his parents weren't really there for him, and even Luke ultimately kicked him out, at least in his mind. She knows she's breaking his heart to reject him like this too. But she has to do it. She can't trust him not to hurt her again. She can't risk suffering through that pain. She wouldn't be able to bear it. She knows it's mean of her to reject his love like this. Cruel even. And she feels bad about it, she does, as she sits down on one of her packed boxes and puts her head in her hands. Why couldn't she have just never dated him in the first place. Why couldn't she have just listened to her mother when she tried to prevent her from becoming friends with Jess two-and-a-half years ago? Everything would be so much simpler now, so much easier. She and Jess would both be in blissful ignorance of what could have been.

_Dear John, I see it all now that you're gone  
Don't you think I was too young  
To be messed with  
The girl in the dress  
Cried the whole way home_

When Lorelai tells Rory that Jess is gone... Rory certainly feels numb the whole rest of the car ride home.

_Dear John, I see it all now it was wrong  
Don't you think nineteen's too young  
To be played by your dark, twisted games  
When I loved you so, I should've known._

When Jess says "I love you" on that frosty February night, a nineteen-year-old Rory is frozen to the spot in shock. That was by far the last thing she expected him to say. She just ranted and raved about how upset she was that he left with no note, no call, _nothing_, and had refused to sit down with him and just talk like he wanted. Now here he was walking away... driving away... and she's still trying to comprehend it all. Doesn't he realize he's kinda still messing with her mind? Toying with her emotions? It's so frustrating and confusing for her and she wishes she really had moved on and that him loving her right now wouldn't matter to her. But she hasn't. After almost a year she really hasn't moved on at all. And she stares after his car which has long since disappeared and thinks. But there he's gone, disappearing _again_. He didn't even let her respond. He didn't give her any time to process it. What was he thinking? She feels so many mixed emotions right now and she just wishes they'd all go away.

_You are an expert at sorry  
And keeping the lines blurry  
Never impressed by me acing your tests  
All the girls that you run dry have tired lifeless eyes  
'Cause you burned them out_

When Jess assures her that she can count on him now, even though he knows she couldn't count on him before, she wants to believe him. He talks about how he knew they were "supposed to be together" the first time he saw her, two years ago. She remembers their first meeting, and how he stole her copy of _Howl_ but later gave it back with margin notes... those wonderful margin notes that made her fall for him before she even really knew him. She remembers how they bonded over books and music and they'd impress each other with their knowledge of both pop culture and literature. She remembers when he tried to make her jealous with Shane. She wonders if Jess hurt her at all when he broke up with her. She'd always thought of Shane as less than human. She thinks Jess kinda thought of her that way too. But she was a real person, with feelings probably. And he was just using her to make the girl he _really_ liked jealous. Maybe Jess wasn't as amazing of a guy as she liked to pretend he was before he broke her heart. Maybe he always was a heartbreaking jerk and she really should have known better.

_But I took your matches  
Before fire could catch me  
So don't look now  
I'm shining like fireworks  
Over your sad empty town_

"And _I'm not going_ to _pine_. I hope you didn't think I was going to _pine_, okay?" She maybe pined a little more than she wanted to, and when Jess popped into her life suddenly during her freshman year at Yale she hadn't gotten over him yet. However, Rory is happily dating Logan when she sees Jess again. He's written a book. And she's impressed. But she's truly moved on from him, finally. He didn't break her permanently. She's built a good life for herself without him. Well. He was right when he said dropping out of Yale wasn't "her". But she fixed that and showed up in Philadelphia to his Open House as the Yale Daily News Editor. She was practically living her dream and it felt good for Jess to know it.

_Dear John, I see it all now that you're gone  
Don't you think I was too young  
To be messed with  
The girl in the dress  
Cried the whole way home_

I see it all now that you're gone  
Don't you think I was too young  
To be messed with  
The girl in the dress  
Wrote you a song, you should've known.

You should've known  
Don't you think I was too young  
You should've known. 

She pulls away from the kiss and tries to apologize to Jess and stop herself from crying as she stands there talking. She explains that she was trying to cheat on Logan the way he cheated on her, and then she leaves. She cries a bit on her trip back up to Connecticut. She hates herself for being such an idiot. For somehow still having feelings for Jess even after all these years. Something is wrong with her. And he still has feelings for her too? That's so unfair. He's still, after all this time, being too perfect and sweet and in love with her... and he's too tempting and she ends up cheating on a guy she's supposed to love. It's all his fault. She tries to remember all the reasons she had come up with to hate him. There were so many good, legitimate reasons. Right? 


End file.
